The present application concerns drilling rigs for boring holes into the ground and more particularly mobile rigs which can traverse the land to sites where holes are to be bored into the ground for various purposes, i.e. to create oil or water wells, for obtaining core samples, etc.
Such mobile drilling rigs are known but are not well suited to traverse many off road conditions and to safely negotiate rugged terrain with areas of steep grades.
Such rigs are typically limited in the depths of drilling possible since the drilling apparatus is not adequately stabilized to allow deep wells to be drilled and the vertical reaction forces become quite substantial when deep holes are attempted to be drilled.
Such rigs also tend to be quite expensive to build and maintain due to their complexity.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a general purpose mobile drilling rig which is able to easily and safely negotiate more rugged terrain and varying surface conditions than prior mobile drill rigs, allowing versatile positioning of an upright mast which supports a drill head which is quickly movable along the length of the mast and enables side to side and forward tilting thereof to accommodate sloping terrain drilling angled holes into the earth.
It is a further object of the invention to provide mobile rigs which can be used to drill deeper holes than conventional mobile rigs by securely stabilizing the rig against tipping motion.
It is another object to provide a mobile drilling rig which can be manufactured and maintained relatively inexpensively and which may be adapted to a great variety of field conditions and uses.
Still another object is to provide a mobile drilling rig which has a retractable seat for an operator which allows good visibility of the components during drilling and movement of the rig between locations where drilling operations are to be conducted.